


Absences

by faithinthepoor



Series: Once Upon a Time [39]
Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-03-29
Updated: 2014-03-29
Packaged: 2018-01-17 12:07:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,294
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1387075
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/faithinthepoor/pseuds/faithinthepoor
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Set during Nasty Habits</p>
            </blockquote>





	Absences

**Author's Note:**

> In my series this follows my [Fairytale Drabbles](http://archiveofourown.org/works/618763), [Mirror Mirror](http://archiveofourown.org/works/618771), [This Provincial Life](http://archiveofourown.org/works/618775), [Viviane or Nimue](http://archiveofourown.org/works/618809), [Dreams and Wishes](http://archiveofourown.org/works/618851), [All the Better To….](http://archiveofourown.org/works/619484), [Magic Keys](http://archiveofourown.org/works/619497), [Curiouser and Curiouser](http://archiveofourown.org/works/619514), [Snow Blind](http://archiveofourown.org/works/620280), [Spinning Straw](http://archiveofourown.org/works/620288), [Wooden Hearts](http://archiveofourown.org/works/621128), [Poisoned](http://archiveofourown.org/works/622526), [True Love and Other Curses](http://archiveofourown.org/works/625038), [Spellbound](http://archiveofourown.org/works/628806), [Over the Rainbow](http://archiveofourown.org/works/630076), [Facades](http://archiveofourown.org/works/632227), [Lost Girls](http://archiveofourown.org/works/636939), [Monstrosities](http://archiveofourown.org/works/640162), [Love and Lies](http://archiveofourown.org/works/652912), [Something Wicked this Way Comes](http://archiveofourown.org/works/665458), [Dreamscapes](http://archiveofourown.org/works/672345), [Homecomings](http://archiveofourown.org/works/676052), [Test Match](http://archiveofourown.org/works/682287), [Wishful Thinking](http://archiveofourown.org/works/697330), [Absent Friends](http://archiveofourown.org/works/771482), [Small Mercies](http://archiveofourown.org/works/773663), [State of Mind](http://archiveofourown.org/works/778498), [Good Intentions](http://archiveofourown.org/works/802589), [The Sins of Mothers](http://archiveofourown.org/works/820893), [Affairs of the Heart](http://archiveofourown.org/works/855926), [Power Plays](http://archiveofourown.org/works/942825), [Future Plans](http://archiveofourown.org/works/969035), [Crying Wolf](http://archiveofourown.org/works/982369), [The Eye of the Storm](http://archiveofourown.org/works/1004056), [Doomsday Devices](http://archiveofourown.org/works/1155836), [Villains](http://archiveofourown.org/works/1191873), [Attachments](http://archiveofourown.org/works/1223896) and [Pain and Pixie Dust](http://archiveofourown.org/works/1284520)

Now that she is alone in a jungle controlled by Pan and his lies she is starting to think that fleeing from the others may not have been the best idea but there really was no alternative. She simply could not have spent a second longer in that cave. She couldn’t stand being surrounded by objects that belonged to a boy whose very existence proves that almost all of her life has been a lie. 

It wasn’t enough to escape the cave, she also needed to escape David and Mary Margaret. Their fixation on Neal and their need to paint him as both a lost hero and the great love of her life is becoming insufferable. She’s trying to accept the bizarre reality that these people are her parents but when they act like this they don’t do themselves any favours. Emma has zero use for parental figures who know less about the world than she does.

Emma is grieving, she doesn’t deny that, but doesn’t need people to place Neal on a pedestal; she needs people who will allow her to complain about what a complete bastard he is for dying on her. She is angry that he died believing that she didn’t love him. That’s an error that can’t be fixed. She’ll will never get the chance to talk to him again and she won’t be able to tell him how she felt. She also won’t be able to tell him that while he was an important part of her past he was not her future. 

Emma feels cheated of the opportunity to let him know she did just fine without him. That although he trampled her heart and made it hard for her trust people he wasn’t able to steal her ability to love. Emma may have reformed after Henry’s birth and her time in prison but Neal remains a thief and even in death he has managed to take precious things from her. The sad thing is that Neal isn’t the only one to blame - it wasn’t just his death that robbed her, it was her subsequent behaviour. She wanted to proudly say that he didn’t render her incapable of forming a real and lasting relationship but there is no longer any evidence to support that claim. Emma thought she had something important with Regina but she went and fucked it all up.

She left that cave to be alone, alone with her thoughts, alone with her misery, so when she hears a twig crack behind her she turns in anger. It frustrates her that no one ever listens to her and she’s ready to give Mary Margaret a piece of her mind. The person in front of her isn’t Mary Margaret though and Emma is forced to rethink her plan because she is face to face with the last person she expected to come looking for her.

Regina stands in silence with her arms folded across her chest. She clearly went to the effort of finding Emma yet she appears to be doing her best to look aloof and disinterested and damn it if Emma doesn’t find that endearing. “How did you convince them to let you be the one to talk to me?” Emma asks.

“Who says I want to talk?” Regina’s voice carries a chill.

“You’ve got a whole island where I’m not and yet you’re here.”

“Well, it turns out that having to deal with you is better than being left alone with those morons.”

“It’s good to know that you think so highly of me but I still don’t understand how you are the one who’s here? Am I going to go back and find Mary Margaret tied up or have you knocked her unconscious?” Her words are said in jest but she knows that there is a very real chance that this could be exactly what has happened.

“Nothing quite so enjoyable, I merely pointed out that I was less than useless at anything that didn’t involve magic and they were inclined to agree. Hook wasn’t pleased but I think he’s too frightened of me to object. They are all still in the cave searching through your lost love’s belongings.”

“He’s not my lost love.” Regina doesn’t need to speak, she just raises an eyebrow of doubt and Emma finds herself backpedalling, “Well he is but he is a love that I lost a long time ago. He is not the love that I am currently mourning.”

“The difference is that you didn’t lose my love Miss Swan, you threw it away.”

“That doesn’t mean I don’t mourn the loss,” it’s selfish but it’s the truth.

“I don’t really care if you are hurting over this Emma.”

She knows that Regina is lying but she allows the other woman to keep her pride, “And what about you? Are you hurting?”

“What I am is very, very angry.”

“So I should hope that my clothing is fire proof then?”

“It would be wise. I don’t feel favourably towards you at the moment and I’d be lying if I said that I hadn’t thought about killing you.”

“That might be more honesty than I can handle.”

“I’ve always been clear that that was a possibility. I told you that I would kill anyone who tried to take you from me.”

“I didn’t think you meant me.”

“It was a statement of absolutes Miss Swan. I’m sorry if it was too vague for you. I’m glad I could take this opportunity to clarify things.”

“I don’t know what I’m meant to say to that.”

“There was a time when you would have screamed at me and accused me of being a psychotic bitch.”

“You almost sound like you miss that.”

“I do find myself nostalgic for simpler times,” Regina tells her with an enigmatic smile.

“Me thinking you were a deranged serial killer counts as a time to be nostalgic about?”

Regina gives the tiniest of shrugs, “It was before,” is all she says.

“Before what?” Emma asks. Regina fires her that look that makes Emma feel the brunette believes she is incapable of tying her own shoelaces. “Before I knew it was all true? Before I knew about the magic?” Because if Regina believes that she is so off base. Learning that Henry wasn’t crazy, that the curse was real, made everything easier for Emma. 

Regina gives a small shake of her head. “Before I knew I loved you. Before I admitted that particular horror to myself.”

“You’re hilarious,” Emma says sarcastically.

Regina looks away, “I guess I’m funny when I’m wounded.” Emma takes a step towards her without thinking and in response Regina raises her hands in a defensive posture. “Don’t, just don’t,” Regina says as she backs away.

“I’m sorry,” she tries to keep her voice soft and cautiously reaches towards Regina. 

“Emma, seriously, don’t. I can’t handle you touching me right now.”

“Why did you even bother to come out here?” she snaps.

“Because I care about you and wanted to see if you were okay.”

“Are you sure it wasn’t because you are jealous of Neal?” There’s no reason for her to say that. Regina hasn’t done anything wrong, not this time, and yet Emma can’t stop herself from lashing out. The things this woman does to her.

“Miss Swan,” Regina’s tone could not be more condescending, “I don’t have the energy to worry about lovers past. Not when I’m forced to watch you and your new boyfriend.”

“What the fuck are you talking about?” 

“The pirate, he wants you.”

She should tell Regina that that doesn’t matter, that he can want her all her wants because she doesn’t want him, but those are not the words that tumble out of her mouth, “And what about you and your _complicated_ relationship with Tinker Bell?” 

“Our past doesn’t involve that type of complication.”

“You two weren’t together? Not ever?” The idea is almost impossible for Emma to comprehend. For a start Tinker Bell would have to be blind.

“No.”

“Then what did you do to make her hate you so much?”

“I was me,” Regina holds her head up but there is no denying the sadness in her eyes.

“I don’t think evil queens are meant to be quite as remorseful as you are.”

“I wasn’t evil when I met her. Far from it.”

“Then what happened?” She doesn’t want to sound like a broken record but her mind has gone straight back to the fear that Tinker Bell is a lover spurned.

“She made plans for me that I didn’t agree to, that I couldn’t live up to. She meddled in my life and she used magic to do it.”

“And that magic came with a price?”

“It always does.”

“Am I allowed to ask what that price was?”

“She lost her wings.”

Emma swallows and wonders if she is going to live to regret this but she asks, “And am I allowed to know what her plan for you was?”

“When I met her I was an unhappy young bride. A very unhappy young bride.” Something about the way Regina says that sends a shiver down Emma’s spine. “Tinker Bell was a ridiculously optimistic little sprite who believed that all the problems in the world were solvable and that everyone got a happy ending.”

“Well we all know how you feel about being happy,” Emma jokes but she knows that there is a little too much truth in those words.

“She didn’t just want me to be happy. She wanted a new start for me.”

“I can see why you hate her,” she quips.

Regina narrows her eyes, “She wanted to use pixie dust to find my true love.”

Suddenly none of this is funny. She can’t think, she can barely breathe. In her past life as a bail bonds person she was kicked in the chest by a perp and she thought she knew what it was like to be winded. She thought wrong. “What happened?” Emma manages to choke out.

“I wasn’t interested in her happy ending.”

“So you didn’t let her do it? You didn’t let her use the pixie dust?” It is becoming a little easier to inhale.

“I told you, what I wanted didn’t matter. She used the pixie dust and she found him.”

“Him?” She doesn’t feel winded anymore. Winded is a feeling for people who have lungs and Regina has scooped Emma’s up her and removed them from her body.

“Yes. Some man with a lion tattoo.”

“Who is he?” Maybe she should ask Regina to pull her heart out, it might stop Emma from asking stupid questions that only have the power to hurt her.

“I don’t know.”

“You didn’t meet him?”

“I wasn’t interested in doing that. I didn’t ask for it. It wasn’t my plan. It was never my plan.”

“But this was your true love,” she should ask Regina to remove her tongue as well as her heart.

“How could he have been?”

“Because of Daniel?”

Tears spill from Regina’s eyes at the mere mention of his name. “I literally destroyed the world for that love, how can it not have been real?”

“I don’t think it wasn’t real.” The intensity of Regina’s first love is something that has always frightened her. It was a legacy that Emma worried she would never be able to live up to.

“It was everything,” Regina states firmly.

“I know that,” she tries to keep the sadness out of her voice but given her lip is quivering and she is blinking back tears it’s a pointless move.

“Emma,” Regina looks her in the eyes, “I sad it _was_ everything. Past tense.”

“It’s not like you cast a curse because of me.”

“You almost sound disappointed about that.”

“Maybe I almost am.”

“If it helps you to know, I gave up my last piece of him to try and keep you.”

“What do you mean?”

“The sleeping curse.”

“The one that you nearly killed Henry with, you mean?”

Regina’s face falls. “I guess it’s a good thing that we are not together anymore. When I try to be romantic it blows up in my face.”

She wishes she could ignore the butterflies that let lose in her chest at the thought of Regina trying to be romantic. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have interrupted. Please go on.”

“I didn’t have my magic in Storybrooke. In order to make that sleeping curse I used something precious. I used the last thing I had that connected me to Daniel.”

“The ring.” she whispers.

“Yes,” Regina nods in confirmation.

“I’d noticed you weren’t wearing it,” she admits, “I guess I just thought….well I hoped….that it was because of….” she waves her hands around in the air, unable to find a way to end that sentence that won’t cause them both pain.

“It was,” Regina says with a smile.

“Putting me to sleep forever was about us?” it sounds so ludicrous that Emma can’t help smiling in return.

“I thought the curse was going to break, I thought I was going to lose you,” that time is well and truly past and yet there is touch of desperation in Regina’s voice, “it was the best I could come up with.”

“Well then I suppose, in your own very fucked up way, you were being romantic.”

“It’s possibly the most romantic thing that I have ever done.”

“I don’t know, it’s no world destroying curse,” Emma teases.

“If I was the same person now that I was then I would have destroyed worlds for you.”

That really, really should not light the spark of joy in her chest that it does. “You don’t have to say that.”

“Use that famed super power of yours and tell me if I’m lying.”

“I know you’re not.” She doesn’t need her spidey sense to know that Regina is telling the truth. Regina takes matters of love seriously. More seriously than anyone that Emma has ever met. 

“Good,” Regina states. 

Emma doesn’t know how she is meant to respond to that. What do you say to someone who goes out of their way to let you know how special you are even though you broke their heart?

Regina seems to sense that Emma is struggling to find her words. The brunette also seems to have decided that her own hands are the most fascinating thing in the world and she stares at them intently as she says, “I’m sorry I ruined things for us. We had some insurmountable odds and we were probably never going to make it but it shouldn’t have happened this way. Things should have fallen apart for a reason - like giving your mother an aneurysm because she found out about us or maybe when the townsfolk lynched me for touching you. We should have at least stumbled in a face of a real obstacle but maybe I only think that because the obstacle that felled us was me.”

“What happened wasn’t your fault.”

“At the end of the day it was my actions that you found intolerable.”

“Regina, I wish I knew what to say.” She can’t deny that Regina’s tendency to put her life on the line was something that she couldn’t deal with and she cares about Regina too much to patronize her by pretending otherwise.

“There’s nothing to say. Besides I didn’t come out here to talk about the past. Well, not our past anyway. I believe the issue at hand is meant to be that we found the spot where an adolescent Baelfire developed his culinary skills.”

She laughs at that, a genuine laugh. “He didn’t bother to show off those skills to me.”

“I’m shocked,” Regina mocks. 

“I know you are the last person I should say this to but you are the only person that I can. I am so pissed with my parents over how they are acting about Neal’s death.”

“They are trying to support you,” it looks as though it costs Regina to say something even remotely positive about Snow and Charming.

“Are they?”

“In their own incompetent way I believe they are,” the smirk on Regina’s face suggests she is much more comfortable when the compliment she is giving the Charmings is a backhanded one.

“I did care about him, I even told them I loved him,” Emma feels a pang of guilt when Regina’s mouth draws into a firm line in response to her words, “but they have never once bothered to ask what our relationship was like or how he actually treated me. They are acting like I have lost the most amazing person who ever lived and not the creep that allowed their grandson to be born in jail. Neither my loving him nor his death changes what he did. He was no saint and I hate that they are treating him like one.”

“Perhaps they don’t feel that they can speak ill of the dead. If it makes you feel any better I can tell you that I certainly don’t think Rumpelstiltskin’s spawn was a saint and I am more than happy to speak ill of him any time you would like.”

“That’s sweet,” she says, and by Regina’s standards it really is, “but it may not be the healthiest thing for you and I to talk about.”

“No, I guess not,” is all Regina says but they both know that it speaks volumes about what they had and what they lost. 

“Regina……..” she starts but stops when Regina shakes her head. 

“I really shouldn’t have come out here. I couldn’t help myself, I needed to see you, to see if you were alright but it wasn’t the right thing to do. I shouldn’t be talking to you and I shouldn’t want to know if you are okay. I’m not even sure if I want you to be okay because I am not okay at all and I feel like I never will be again.”

“I don’t know what to say.” She doesn’t like how she’s feeling right now. Regina is the last person that she would want to hurt but here she is feeling a sense of satisfaction because Regina is in pain. Her whole life she has feared that she was easy to leave, easy to forget, and it’s selfish and it’s wrong but it feels good to know that losing her has had an impact on Regina.

“I don’t expect you to say anything. You can save that for your parents and the pirate.”

“I don’t want to talk to any of them,” she complains.

“Well you can’t talk to me. Not anymore.”

“I guess I lost that right didn’t I?”

The wave of emotion that flashes through Regina’s eyes is confusing to Emma but Regina is calm and poised as she says. “Yes. Yes you did.” Regina then turns and leaves and Emma lets her go, it’s the least she can do under the circumstances. 

Emma is left all alone with her thoughts and that is probably for the best. She stays out in the jungle until Mary Margaret finds her. Emma collapses into her arms and bursts into tears as Mary Margaret strokes her hair. She tells Emma that everything will be alright and Emma allows Mary Margaret to comfort her because she’s weak and her heart is broken. Mary Margaret whispers words of support in her ear and Emma does the best to ignore them because Mary Margaret is eulogizing a man that doesn’t exist. Emma takes the sympathy, wrapped in a lie as it may be, because she really needs it right now and if Mary Margaret knew why she was really grieving she would never offer it.


End file.
